Is there a YouTube for writers? Basically a way to share manuscripts on social media

What distinguishes YouTube is not the number of contributors, though that is huge, and essential to its success, but the number of viewers, which is extraordinarily large. What makes a content platform is always its appeal to consumers. For any content platform, the primary appeal to producers is that it has a lot of consumers.

YouTube is a great platform for consuming short videos. There is a huge appetite for short videos, but mostly for technical communication (how to do stuff) and music. The platform for long videos is not YouTube (though they seem to by trying), it is Netflix.

Viewing YouTube is all about short experiences and frequent shifts. It works well in a browser or on a phone. Viewing NetFlix is all about sitting back on the couch with a box of popcorn to watch a movie on a big screen. It is a different experience requiring a different platform.

In the book world, the nearest equivalent platform to Netflix is Kindle. They are both about the long-form sit back and enjoy experience.

There is no market for short fiction. There hasn't been one for decades, not since the demise of the classic family magazine market. Short stories are now apprentice pieces sold for no money to enthusiast magazines and webzines that no one reads. Thus there is no role for a short-form fiction exchange the way there is a role for a short form largely non-fiction video service like YouTube. And the YouTube model is not the right one for long form content of any kind.

Finally, there is no need for a similar platform for most forms of short-form non-fiction writing (technical communication, marketing) because Google provides all the navigation you need to find that stuff.

There is, however, a platform for a particular kind of short form non-fiction: questions and answers. You are using it now. Stack Exchange is probably the closest analog we have to YouTube for textual content.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

It sounds like you're looking for Wattpad (https://www.wattpad.com/home) I don't use the platform myself, but for what I can see, it allows you to upload chapters of your book up to the full book, give a cover and some metadata, and share it with the community.

Everybody can read your text and comment snippets of it, creating engagement with the community members - this I believe is the nicest feature.

You can browse books by genre, and see statistics for each one (reads, likes, lists in which it's included, etc.)

Every language has its own community, so you can easily share your book to the specific audience of your language. It's not english-only.

Sometimes you read articles in the newspapers about writers who signed deals with publishers after receiving many views on Wattpad, so this gives some promotional push to the website.

Reading your question, I believe that is as close as you can get to something like YouTube.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

FraEnrico‭

130 reputation 4 12 24 0

I have been searching for a long time to find such a site that was actually good, but I've failed. It seems most of them are either for professionals (people who already have books published) or are for amateur teens who claim their rewrites of Twilight and Divergent are "original"

There was this one place, Figment, that was alright. I heard it's shutting down this year and they're rebooting it. It was okay enough. You could post your work and get reviews and chat about writing in the forums. However, it was difficult to get attention for your work unless you a) were super popular b) managed to become your own graphic designer and create the best freaking cover ever!

I would suggest looking into that and then what comes out after its shut down and remade. Although it had its flaws, it was pretty casual and there were no strict rules for who could/couldn't post.

posted about 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

W.Richardson‭

10 reputation 0 1 2 0